The Mass Extermination Of Jews In German Occupied Poland

REPUBLIC OF POLAND

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

THE MASS EXTERMINATION
of JEWS in

GERMAN OCCUPIED POLAND

NOTE

addressed to the Governments of the
United Nations on December 10th, 1942,
and other documents

Published on behalf of the Polish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs by

HUTCHINSON & CO. (Publishers) LTD.
LONDON : NEW YORK : MELBOURNE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

3, Introductory Note.

4. Text of Note addressed to the Governments of the United

Nations, December 10, 1942.

12. Text of Joint Declaration of December 17, 1942 (by the Govern-

ments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United States of
America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics,
and Yugoslavia, and by the French National Committee).

13. Extract of Statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister,

Mr. St. Mikolajczyk, on behalf of the Polish Government,
November 27, 1942, at a special meeting of the Polish
National Council ; followed by text of Resolution adopted
by the National Council,

15. Text of a Broadcast by Count Edward Raczynski, Polish
Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the
Court of St. James (December 17, 1942).

Printed in Great Britain
by

The Cornwall Press Ltd., London , S.E.l

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The purpose of this publication is to make public the contents
of the Note of December 10th, 1942, addressed by the Polish
Government to the Governments of the United Nations concerning
the mass extermination of Jews in the Polish territories occupied
by Germany , and also other documents treating on the same
subject.

In the course of the last three years the Polish Government has
lodged a number of protests with the Governments of the civilised
countries of the world condemning the repeated violations by
Germany of International Law and of the fundamental princi-
ples of morality since September 1st , 1939, i.e. since Germany's
aggression against Poland.

In the Note of May 3rd, 1941, presented to the Governments
of the Allied and Neutral Powers the Polish Government gave
a comprehensive survey of the acts of violence perpetrated against
the population of Poland , of offences against religion and cultural
heritage and destruction of property in Poland. An extract
of this Note , together with a large amount of corroborating
material , has been published in the form of a White Book.*

Since the publication of the White Book , however , many
increasingly brutal acts of violence and terror have been com-
mitted by German authorities in Poland. In recent months
these persecutions have been directed with particular violence
against the Jewish population , who have been subjected to new
methods calculated to bring , about the complete extermination
of the Jews , in conformity with the public statements made by
the leaders of Germany.

In the hope that the civilised world will draw the appropriate
conclusions , the Polish Government desire to bring to the notice
of the public , by means of the present White Paper , these renewed
German efforts at mass extermination , with the employment of
fresh horrifying methods.

* Republic of Poland , Ministry of Foreign Affairs : “ The German Occupation
of Poland Extract of Note addressed to the Governments of the Allied and
Neutral Powers on May 3 , 1941 . London and New York.

The “ White Book ” was subsequently translated into several languages, i.a
French and Spanish.

3

REPUBLIC OF POLAND London,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs December 10 th, 1942

Your Excellency,

On several occasions the Polish Government have drawn
the attention of the civilised world, both in diplomatic
documents arid official publications, to the conduct of the
German Government and of the German authorities of
occupation, both military and civilian, and to the methods
employed by them “ in order to reduce the population to
virtual slavery and ultimately to exterminate the Polish
nation These methods, first introduced in Poland, were
subsequently, applied in a varying degree, in other countries
occupied by the armed forces of the German Reich.

2. At the Conference held at St. James’s Palace on January
13th, 1942, the Governments of the occupied countries

u placed among their principal war aims the punishment, .
through the channel of organised justice, of those guilty
of, or responsible for, those crimes, whether they have ordered
them, perpetrated them, or participated in them

Despite this solemn warning and the declarations of
President Roosevelt, of the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston
Churchill, and of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
M. Molotov, the German Government has not ceased to
apply its methods of violence and terror. The Polish
Government have received numerous reports from Poland
testifying to the constant intensification of German persecu-
tion of the subjected populations.

3. Most recent reports present a horrifying picture of the
position to which the Jews in Poland have been reduced.
The new methods of mass slaughter applied during the last
few months confirm the fact that the German authorities
aim with systematic deliberation at the total extermination
of the Jewish population of Poland and of the many thousands
of Jews whom the German authorities have deported to
Poland from Western and Central European countries and
from the German Reich itself.

The Polish Government consider it their duty to bring
to the knowledge of the Governments of all civilised countries
the following fully authenticated information received from
Poland during recent weeks, which indicates all too plainly

4

the new methods of extermination adopted by the German
authorities.

4. The initial steps leading to the present policy of exter-
mination of the Jews were taken already in October, 1940,
when the German authorities established the Warsaw ghetto.
At that time all the Jewish inhabitants of the Capital were
ordered to move into the Jewish quarter assigned to them
not later than November 1st, 1940, while all the non- Jews
domiciled within the new boundaries of what was to become
the ghetto were ordered to move out of that quarter. The
Jews were allowed to take only personal effects with them,
while all their remaining property was confiscated. All
Jewish shops and businesses outside the new ghetto boun-
daries were closed down and sealed. The original date for
these transfers was subsequently postponed to November
15th, 1940. After that date the ghetto was completely
closed and its entire area was surrounded by a brick wall,
the right of entry and exit being restricted to the holders
of special passes, issued by the German authorities. All
those who left the ghetto without such a pass became liable
to sentence of death, and it is known that German courts
passed such sentences in a large number of cases.

5. After the isolation of the ghetto, official intercourse
with the outside world was maintained through a special
German office known as “ Transferstelle ”. Owing to totally
inadequate supplies of food for the inhabitants of the ghetto,
smuggling on a large scale was carried on; the Germans
themselves participated in this illicit trading, drawing con-
siderable incomes from profits and bribes. The food rations
for the inhabitants of the ghetto amounted to about a pound
of bread per person weekly, with practically nothing else.
As a result, prices in the ghetto were on an average ten times
higher than outside, and mortality due to exhaustion,
starvation and disease, particularly during the last two
winters, increased on an unprecedented scale. During the
winter 1941-1942 the death rate, calculated on an annual
base, has risen to 13 per cent., and during the first quarter
of 1942 increased still further. Scores of corpses were

* found in the streets of the ghetto every day.

6. At the time when the ghetto was established the whole
population was officially stated to amount to 433,000,

5

and in spite of the appalling death rate it was being main-
tained at this figure by the importation of Jews from Germany
and from the occupied countries, as well as from other parts
of Poland.

7. The outbreak of war between Germany and Soyiet
Russia and the occupation of the Eastern areas of Poland
by German troops considerably increased the numbers of
Jews in Germany’s power. At the same time the mass
murders of Jews reached such dimensions that, at first,
people refused to give credence to the reports reaching
Warsaw from the Eastern provinces. The reports, however,
were confirmed again and again by reliable witnesses. During
the winter 1941-1942 several tens of thousands of Jews were
murdered. In the city of Wilno over 50,000 Jews were
reported to have been massacred and only 12,000 of them
remain in the local ghetto. In the city of Lwow 40,000 were
reported murdered ; in Rowne 14,000 ; in Kowel 10,000, and
unknown numbers in Stanislawow, Tarnopol, Stryj, Drohob-
ycz and many other smaller towns. At first the executions
were carried out by shooting ; subsequently, however, it
is reported that the Germans applied new methods, such
as poison gas, by means of which the Jewish population
was exterminated in Chelm, or electrocution, for which a
camp was organised in Belzec, where in the course of March
and April, 1942, the Jews from the provinces of Lublin,
Lwow and Kielce, amounting to tens of thousands, were
exterminated. Of Lublin’s 30,000 Jewish inhabitants only
2,500 still survive in the city.

8. It has been reliably reported that on the occasion of
his visit to the General Gouvernement of Poland in March,
1942, Himmler issued an order for the extermination of 50 per
cent, of the Jews in Poland by the end of that year After
Himmler’s departure the Germans spread the rumour that
the Warsaw ghetto would be liquidated as from April, 1942.
This date was subsequently altered to June. Himmler’s
second visit to Warsaw in the middle of July, 1942, became
the signal for the commencement of the process of liquidation,
the horror of which surpasses anything known in the annals
of history.

9. The liquidation of the ghetto was preceded, on July 17th,
1942, by the registration of all foreign Jews confined there

6

who were then removed to the Pawiak prison. As
from July 20th, 1942, the guarding of the ghetto was en-
trusted to special security battalions, formed from the scum
of several Eastern European countries, while large forces
of German police armed with machine guns and commanded
by SS. officers were posted at all the gates leading into the
ghetto. Mobile German police detachments patrolled all
the boundaries of the ghetto day and night.

10. On July 31st, at 11 a.m., German police cars drove up
to the building of the Jewish Council of the ghetto, in.
Grzybowska Street. The SS. officers ordered the chairman
of the Jewish Council, Mr. Czerniakow, to summon the
inembers of the Council, who were all arrested on arrival
and removed in police cars to the Pawiak prison. After a few
hours’ detention the majority of them were allowed to return
to the ghetto. About the same time flying squads of German
police entered the ghetto, breaking into the houses in search
of Jewish intellectuals. The better dressed Jews found were
killed on the spot, without the police troubling even to
identify them. Among those who were thus killed was a
non- Jew, Professor Dr. Raszeja, who was visiting the ghetto
in the course of his medical duties and was in possession of
an official pass. Hundreds of educated Jews were killed in
this way.

11. On the morning of the following day, July 22nd, 1942,
the German police again visited the office of the Jewish
Council and summoned all the members, who had been
released from the Pawiak prison the previous day. On
their assembly they were informed that an order had been
issued for the removal of the entire Jewish population of
the Warsaw ghetto and printed instructions to that effect were
issued in the form of posters, the contents of which are
reproduced in Annex. 1 to this Note. Additional instructions
were issued verbally. The number of people to be removed
was first fixed at 6,000 daily. The persons concerned were
to assemble in the hospital wards and grounds in Stawki
Street, the patients of which were evacuated forthwith. The
hospital was close to the railway siding. Persons subject to
deportation were to be delivered by the Jewish police not
later than 4 p.m. each day. Members of the Council and other
hostages were to answer for the strict^ld^^e^t of the order.

7

^fasuoraul!

In conformity with German orders, all inmates of Jewish
prisons, old-age pensioners and inmates of other charitable
institutions were to be included in the first contingent.

12. On July 23rd, 1942, at 7 p.m., two German police
officers again visited the offices of the Jewish Council and
saw the chairman, Mr. Czerniakow. After they left him he
committed suicide. It is reported that Mr. Czerniakow
did so because the Germans increased the contingent
of the first day to 10,000 persons, to be followed by 7,000
persons on each subsequent day. Mr. Czerniakow was

* succeeded in his office by Mr. Lichtenbaum, and on the
following day 10,000 persons were actually assembled for
deportation, followed by 7,000 persons on each subsequent
day. The people affected were either rounded up haphazardly
in the streets or were taken from their homes.

13. According to the German order of July 22nd, 1942, all
Jews employed in German-owned undertakings, together
with their families, were to be exempt from deportation.
This produced acute competition among the inhabitants
of the ghetto to secure employment in such undertakings, or,
failing employment, bogus certificates to that effect. Large
sums of money, running into thousands of Zlotys, were being
paid for such certificates to the German owners. They did
not, however, save the purchasers from deportation,
which was being carried out without discrimination or
identification,

14. The actual process of deportation was carried out with
appalling brutality. At the appointed hour on each day the
German police cordoned off a block of houses selected for
clearance, entered the back yard and fired their guns at
random, as a signal for all to leave their homes and assemble,
in the yard. Anyone attempting to escape or to hide was
killed on the spot. No attempt was made by the Germans
to keep families together. Wives were torn from their
husbands and children from their parents. Those who
appeared frail or infirm were carried straight to the
Jewish cemetery to be killed and buried there. On the
average 50-100 people were disposed of in this way daily.
After the contingent was assembled, the people were packed
forcibly into cattle trucks to the number of 120 in each truck,
which had room for forty. The trucks were then locked and

8

sealed. The Jews were suffocating for lack of air. The floors
of the trucks were covered with quicklime and chlorine. As
far as is known, the trains were despatched to three localities
— Tremblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, to what the reports
describe as “ Extermination camps.” The very method of
transport was deliberately calculated to cause the largest
possible number of casualties among the condemned Jews.
It is reported that on arrival in camp the survivors were
stripped naked and killed by various means, including poison
gas and electrocution. The dead were interred in mass
graves dug by machinery.

15. According to all available information, of the 250,000
Jews deported from the Warsaw ghetto up to September 1st,
1942, only two small transports, numbering about 4,000
people, are known to have been sent eastwards in the direction
of Brest-Litovsk and Malachowicze, allegedly to be employed
on work behind the front line. It has not been possible to
ascertain whether any of the other Jews deported from the
Warsaw ghetto still survive, and it must be feared that they
have been all put to death.

16. The Jews deported from the Warsaw ghetto so far
included in the first instance all the aged afid infirm ; a
number of the physically strong have escaped so far, because
of their utility as labour power. All the children from Jewish
schools, orphanages and children’s homes were deported,
including those from the orphanage in charge of the celebrated
educationist, Dr. Janusz Korczak, who refused to abandon his
charges, although he was given the alternative of remaining
behind.

17. According to the most recent reports, 120,000 ration
cards were distributed in the Warsaw ghetto for the month of
September, 1942, while the report also mentions that only
40,000 such cards were to be distributed for the month of
October, 1942. The latter figure is corroborated by informa-
tion emanating from the German Employment Office
(Arbeitsamt), which mentioned the number of 40,000 skilled
workmen as those who were to be allowed to remain in a
part of the ghetto, confined to barracks and employed on
German war production.

18. The deportations from the Warsaw ghetto were inter-
rupted during five days, between August 20th-25th. The

9

German machinery for the mass slaughter of the Jews was
employed during this interval on the liquidation of other
ghettoes in Central Poland, including the towns of Falenica,
Rembertow, Nowy Dwor, Kaluszyn and Minsk Mazowiecki.

19. It is not possible to estimate the exact numbers of
Jews who have been exterminated in Poland since the
occupation of the country by the armed forces of the German
Reich. But all the reports agree that the total number of
killed runs into many hundreds of thousands of innocent
victims — men, women and children — and that of the
3,130,000 Jews in Poland before the outbreak of war, over
a third have perished during the last three years.

20. The Polish population, which itself is suffering the most
grievous afflictions, and of which many millions have been
either deported to Germany as slave labour or evicted from
their homes and lands, deprived of so many of their leaders,
who have been cruelly murdered by the Germans, have
repeatedly expressed, through the underground organisations,
their horror of and compassion with the terrible fate which has
befallen their Jewish fellow-countrymen. The Polish Govern-
ment are in possession of information concerning the assistance
which the Polish population is rendering to the Jews. For
obvious reasons no details of these activities can be published
at present.

21. The Polish Government — as the representatives of the
legitimate authority on territories in which the Germans are
carrying out the systematic extermination of Polish citizens
and of citizens of Jewish origin of many other European
countries — consider it their duty to address themselves to
the Governments of the United Nations, in the confident
belief that they will share their opinion as to the necessity
not only of condemning the crimes committed by the Germans
and punishing the criminals, but also of finding means
offering the hope that Germany might be effectively restrained
from continuing to apply her methods of mass extermination.

I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your
Excellency the assurances of my high consideration.

l. s. EDWARD RACZYNSKI.

10

Annex 1 :

JEWISH COUNCIL IN WARSAW
NOTICE

Warsaw, July 22nd, 1942.

1. By order of the German authorities all Jews living in Warsaw,
without regard to age or sex, are to be deported to the East.

2. The following are exempted from the deportation order : —

(a) All Jews employed by the German authorities or
German enterprises, who can produce adequate evidence
of the fact.

(b) All Jews who are members and employees of the Jewish
Council according to their status on the day of publi-

/ cation of this order.

(c) All Jews employed in German-owned firms who can
produce adequate evidence of the fact.

(d) All Jews not yet thus employed, but who are capable of
work. These are to be barracked in the Jewish quarter.

(e) All Jews belonging to the Jewish civil police.

(/) All Jews belonging to the staffs of Jewish hospitals,
or belonging to Jewish disinfection squads.

(g) All Jews who are members of the families of persons
covered by (a) to (/). Only wives and children are
regarded as members of families.

(h) All Jews who on the day of deportation are patients
in one of the Jewish hospitals, unless fit to be discharged.
Unfitness for discharge mui^t be attested by a doctor
appointed by the Jewish Council.

3. Each Jew to be deported is entitled to take with him on the
joimiey 15 kilogrammes of his personal effects. Anything
in excess of 15 kg. will be confiscated. All articles of value,
such as money, jewellery, gold, etc., may be retained. Suffi-
cient food for three days’ journey should be taken.

4. Deportation begins on July 22nd, 1942, at 11 a.m.

5. Punishments :

(а) Any Jew who is not included among persons specified
under par. 2 points (a) and ( c ) and so far not entitled to
be so included, who leaves the Jewish quarter after the
deportation has begun will be shot.

(б) Any Jew who undertakes activities likely to frustrate
or hinder the execution of the deportation orders will
be shot.

(c) Any Jew who assists in any activity which might
frustrate or hinder the execution of the deportation
orders will be shot.

11

(d) Any Jew found in Warsaw, after the conclusion of the
deportation of Jews, who is not included among the
persons specified under par. 2 points (a) to (&) will be
shot.

Joint Declaration

Announced Simultaneously on December 17th, 1942, in
London, Moscow and Washington

“ The attention of the Governments of Belgium, Czecho-
slovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics, and Yugoslavia, and of the French National Com-
mittee, has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that
the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of
Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule
has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now
carrying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeated intention to exterminate
the Jewish people in Europe. From all the occupied countries
Jews are being transported, in conditions of appalling horror and
brutality, to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made
the principal Nazi slaughter-house, the Ghettoes established by
the German invaders are being systematically emptied of all
Jews, except a few highly skilled workers required for war indus-
tries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The
able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labour camps. The
infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation, or are deliberately
massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these
bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of
entirely innocent men, women, and children.

“ The above-mentioned Governments and the French National
Committee condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial
policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such
events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom-loving
peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They
reaffirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible
for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on
with the necessary practical measures to this end.”

12

Extract of Statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister,
M. St. Mikolajczyk, on behalf of the Polish Government ,
November 27, 1942, at a special meeting of the Polish
National Council ; and text of Resolution adopted by the
National Council : —

The Polish Government, in the fullest understanding of their
responsibilities, not neglecting their duty to inform the world
of the mass murders and bestialities of the Germans in Poland,
have done everything in their power to counteract this terror.

We are fully aware of the fact that the fundamental condition
of an effective counter-action against the German programme
which, in relation to Poland is best expressed by one slogan —
to destroy the Polish nation, wiping out the traces of its
existence — is to shorten the time of suffering and resistance
for the Poles in Poland and to defeat the enemy quickly.

That is why the previous appeals from Poland to open up
a second front and now the appeals to hasten up, at any price,
the pace of the w$r, are considered by us to be the fundamental
principles of the policy of the Polish Government.

The persecutions of the Jewish minority now in progress in
Poland, constitute, however, a separate page of Polish martyro-

logy-

Himmler’s order that 1942 must be the year of liquidation
of at least 50 per cent, of Polish Jewry, is being carried out with
utter ruthlessness and a barbarity never before seen in world
history. Everyone of us knows the details, so I will not go into
them again. . . .

From Poland there comes a protest against the murders and
persecutions. The protest is accompanied by cries of pity,
sympathy and utter helplessness of those who have to look
on what is happening there. . . .

In the name of the Polish Government I support this protest
of Poles in Poland and that of the Polish National Council. The
Polish Government defends the interests of all Polish citizens
of whatever religion or nationality they may be, and does it both
in the interests of the state and in the name of humanity and
Christianity. . . .

I can only hope and pray that the protest of the Polish Govern-
ment and that of the Polish National Council which represents
all the groups of Polish society, will shake the conscience of the
world, will find its way to quarters where decisions speeding up
military action are taken, that it will bring about an intensified
help for those who are still alive, that it will strengthen on the
Allied side the determination to punish the crimes and serve as

13

a warning to the assassins whose crimes, duly registered, will
not escape a just punishment and who soon will feel the hand of
justice fall heavily on their backs.

After the declaration of Mr. Mikolajczyk , the Polish National
Council unanimously adopted the following resolution : —

The Government of the Polish Republic has brought the last
news about the massacres of the Jewish population in Poland,
carried out systematically by the German occupying authorities,
to the attention of the Allied Governments and of public opinion
in Allied countries. The number of Jews who have been mur-
dered by the Germans in Poland so far, since September, 1939,
exceeds 1,000,000.

From the beginning of the conquest of the territories of the
Republic, the bestial occupying power has subjected the Polish
nation to an appalling policy of extermination, to such an extent
that by now the Polish population has been reduced by several
million. Now the occupying power has reached the summit of
its murder-lust and sadism by organising mass-murders of hun-
dreds of thousands of Jews in Poland, not only the Polish Jews
but also the Jews brought from other countries to Poland with
the purpose of exterminating them. The German murderers
have sent to their death hundreds of thousands of men, women,
children and old people. Their purpose is to enfeeble the Polish
nation and completely to exterminate the Jews in Poland before
the end of this year. In the execution of this plan Adolf Hitler
and his henchmen are using the most appalling tortures.

The Polish Government and the Polish National Council, and
the Polish Nation at home, have often protested against the
German crimes, and announced that a just punishment would be
meted out to these offenders against mankind. Lately the Polish
Government has submitted to the Polish National Council the
draft of a law providing for the punishment of the German
criminals.

In the face of the latest German crimes, unparalleled in the
history of mankind, which have been carried out against the
Polish nation, and particularly against the Jewish population of
Poland, the Polish National Council again raises a strong protest
and pronounces an indictment before the whole civilised world.

The Polish National Council solemnly declares :

By its heroic attitude at home the Polish nation is gathering
its strength for the day of just retribution, amidst unspeakable
sufferings.

The Polish National Council appeals to all the Allied nations

14

■

and to all the .nations now suffering together with the Polish nation
under the German yoke, that they should at once start a common
action against this trampling and profanation of all principles of
morality and humanity by the Germans, and against the exter-
mination of the Polish nation and other nations, an extermination
the most appalling expression of which is provided by the mass-
murders of the Jews in Poland and in the rest of Europe which
Hitler has subjected.

To all those who are suffering and undergoing torture in Poland,
both to Poles and to Jews, to all those who are taking part in the
struggle for liberation and for the preparation of a just retribution
on the German criminals, the Polish National Council sends words
of hope and of unshakeable faith in the recovery of. freedom for all.
The day of victory and punishment is approaching.

Text of a Broadcast by Count E. Raczynski, Polish Acting
Minister of Foreing Affairs ( December 17th, 1942).,

I am speaking to you to-night on a subject, the immensity of
which I would like you to realise to the full.

1 would like to make you understand how real is the tragedy
which is taking place not so very far from the shores of this island,
on the Continent of Europe — on the soil of Poland.

For more than three years the Germans have consistently done
everything they could to hide from the eyes of the world the
rtiartyrdom of the Polish nation, the like of which has never
been known in the history of humanity. But “ when we would
keep silence the very stones will cry out.”

After receiving from Poland reports of a further intensification
of the German terror, the Polish Government considered it their
duty to send a note to all interested Governments drawing their
attention to the horror of the situation and reminding them that
what Germany is aiming at is: to reduce the population to
virtual slavery and in the end to exterminate the Polish nation.

More particularly the Polish Government communicated to
the Governments of the United Nations authentic information
on the mass slaughter not only of those Jews whom the Germans
overwhelmed in Poland, but also of the hundreds of thousands
of those whom they have transplanted from other countries and
imprisoned in the Ghettoes, which they have established in our
country.

15

WBmSBSa^

zsam

11

mink

The note states that according to the reports in possession
of the Polish Government, of a total of three million, one hundred
and thirty thousand Polish Jews, more than one-third, has already
been exterminated, and ends with the appeal for “ condemning
the crimes, punishing the criminals and devising means offering
the hope that Germany might be effectively restrained from
continuing to apply her methods of mass extermination.”

This morning, the Governments of the United Nations of the
European Continent united their voices with those of the Powers
in a solemn declaration, expressing their unshakable determina-
tion to cauterise with red-hot iron the evil which so dangerously
infects the German people.

It is tragic to contemplate that this policy of extermination
applied to the Jews by the German Government is being carried
out with the active help or, at least, support of a considerable
section of the German people, while the remaining part of that
people allow it to pass in silence.

I know that in a totalitarian regime it is not easy to protest,
but the occupied nations nevertheless find the means to manifest
their will and their opposition to the barbarous methods of
Germany.

When I think of the German nation, so powerful in its armed
might and owning so gigantic a war machine, and at the same
time so cowardly accepting the destruction of an entire race, the
representatives of which, such as Heine, Mendelssohn and Einstein
contributed so much to the glory of Germany’s civilisation and,
on the other hand, when I think of my own nation, which itself
is being massacred and nevertheless is capable of such acts of
defiance and compassion as the demolition by Polish workers of
a part of the wall which surrounds the ghetto of Warsaw, then I
cannot help thinking how small is this mighty German nation—
and how measureless is its infamy.

Civilised words and remonstrances are to-day of no avail where
that nation is concerned. The bloody crimes call out for justice
without mercy, and the assurance that even now they will receive
their answer in ever more telling deeds as the might of the United
Nations grows and as the hour of judgment approaches apace.